2.05 Mix Tape Puzzle

Order

2.04

Status

::POLISH-READY::

Location

A used record store on the Peninsula.

Type

Mandatory Puzzle

Plot Setup

Machine is still not fixed; Doctor When needs Chronos' password to her supercomputer. He doesn't know it, but she gave him this mix tape long ago and hinted that she had hidden her most important secrets in it - which could very well be her password.

Props

Mixtape with insert.

Plot Point to Convey

Chronos loves When - plus, the machine is fixed now.

Short Description

Teams get a mixtape with 18 songs, each with the word "time" in the title, plus an insert with (out-of-order) artists and years and a poem from Catherine.

Detailed Description

Teams receive a mixtape created by Catherine Chronos when she was in high school and given to Wesley shortly before they graduated. They're told that Catherine had said it contained one of her biggest secrets, and Dr. When thinks that's probably the password to her computer. Enclosed with the mixtape is a poem that Catherine had written to young Wesley. All of the songs turn out to be time-related, and the puzzle solution implies that Catherine had a crush on Wesley.

Puzzle Answer

ILOVEWESLEY ("IHEARTWESLEY" is also acceptable.)

Puzzle Solution

• “Name all the tunes”. The solver should notice that the song titles fit the blanks on the page, one blank per word, although the provided artists and years mostly don't match.

• “Use what they share” – every song has the word “time” in the title. The solver needs to get the aha that the position of the word "time" needs to be used as a letter-index into the provided artist.

Order on Tape	Song	Listed Artist	Listed Year	"Time" Index	Index Letter
1	A Minute Of Your Time	Rocky Horror Picture Show, The	1975	5	Y
2	Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is	Tyrone Davis	1970	6	E
3	Hot Fun In The Summertime	“Andy” Andrew Williams	1963	5	A
4	As Time Goes By	Armstrong, Louis	1964	2	R
5	Turn Back The Hands Of Time	Floyd, Pink	1973	6	P
6	Time After Time	Lauper, Cyndi	1964	1,3	LU
7	Old Time Rock And Roll	B. Seger	1979	2	S
8	The Times They Are A-Changin’	Captain & Tennile	1979	2	A
9	It’s Been A Long, Long Time	Dylan, Robert	1964	6	R
10	The Time Warp	Stone, Sly & The Family	1969	2	T
11	It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year	Rolling Stones, The	1964	5	I
12	Feels Like The First Time	James "Jimmy" Durante	1965	5	S
13	Do That To Me One More Time	Stewart, Al	1978	7	T
14	Time	Simon, Carly	1974	1	S
15	All Time High	Theme from Octopussy	1983	2	H
16	Haven’t Got Time For The Pain	Chicago	1970	3	I
17	Time Passages	Foreigner	1977	1	F
18	Time Is On My Side	Tom Jones	1968	1	T

This gets "my code's formula" : YEAR PLUS ARTIST SHIFT. (Note that, for “Time After Time”, you index twice.)

• “I’ve shifted the artists, you’ll note – absolutely”. Keeping the same ARTIST order ("leave them as listed..."), find the correct song for the listed artist and add the (absolute value of the) number of rows between the listed artist and the actual song recorded by that artist.

• Example for the above step: in the first row, the artist listed is "Rocky Horror Picture Show, The". The actual song from that artist is The Time Warp, in row 10. That's a shift of 9 rows, so you take the listed year, 1975, and add the absolute value (9) of the shift, to get 1984.

• “’What will this give me?’ you ask? Keys for you!” (Note the hint for ASCII in “ask-keys”.) Take the last two digits of the “year + shift” column and read them as ASCII.

Order on Tape	Listed Song	Listed Artist	Correct Song	Listed Year	Shift	F+ABS(G)	ASCII(G - 1900)
1	A Minute Of Your Time	Rocky Horror Picture Show, The	The Time Warp	1975	9	1984	T
2	Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is	Tyrone Davis	Turn Back The Hands Of Time	1970	3	1973	I
3	Hot Fun In The Summertime	“Andy” Andrew Williams	It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year	1963	8	1971	G
4	As Time Goes By	Armstrong, Louis	It's Been A Long, Long Time	1964	5	1969	E
5	Turn Back The Hands Of Time	Floyd, Pink	Time	1973	9	1982	R
6	Time After Time	Lauper, Cyndi	Lauper, Cyndi	1984	0	1984	T
7	Old Time Rock And Roll	B. Seger	Old Time Rock And Roll	1979	0	1979	O
8	The Times They Are A-Changin'	Captain & Tennile	Do That To Me One More Time	1979	5	1984	T
9	It's Been A Long, Long Time	Dylan, Robert	The Times They Are A-Changin'	1964	-1	1965	A
10	The Time Warp	Stone, Sly & The Family	Hot Fun In The Summertime	1969	-7	1976	L
11	It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year	Rolling Stones, The	Time Is On My Side	1964	7	1971	G
12	Feels Like The First Time	James "Jimmy" Durante	As Time Goes By	1965	-8	1973	I
13	Do That To Me One More Time	Stewart, Al	Time Passages	1978	4	1982	R
14	Time	Simon, Carly	Haven't Got Time For The Pain	1974	2	1976	L
15	All Time High	Theme from Octopussy	All Time High	1983	0	1983	S
16	Haven't Got Time For The Pain	Chicago	Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is	1970	-14	1984	T
17	Time Passages	Foreigner	Feels Like The First Time	1977	-5	1982	R
18	Time Is On My Side	Tom Jones	A Minute Of Your Time	1968	-17	1985	U

The text says "TIGERTOTALGIRLSTRU".

• “Keys for you! To four “timeless” chart-toppers since ‘82. Four clues and four songs– now here’s the last part: Just start what I finish, or end what I start.” There are four “words” from the previous step – TIGER, TOTAL,GIRLS, TRU. Each is the first or last word of a “chart-topper” – a Billboard #1 single in the US – between 1982 and the date of the poem (5/20/86). The songs are:

• • TIGER: “Eye of the Tiger”
  • TOTAL: “Total Eclipse of the Heart”
  • GIRLS: “West End Girls”
  • TRU: “Truly”

• “Just start what I finish, or end what I start.” If the clue was the first word of the title of the “chart-topper”, take the last word of the title, and vice-versa. This gives the words EYE-HEART-WEST-LY.

• “You’ve syllables four – now say them out loud!” Saying these words out loud gives “I heart Wesley”. Either “I heart Wesley” or “I love Wesley” is acceptable as an answer.

Budget

Tapes and inserts, plus some tape players for teams that don't bring them. Estimate: $100.

Credits

Design: Erik Stuart

Manager

Erik

Hints

General hints:

- Catherine’s poem gives a “roadmap” of how to solve the puzzle. (She wanted Wesley to solve it, after all!)

- To identify the songs, teams can use their own knowledge or a service like Shazam, or can do an internet search for lyrics.

- Many teams will be tempted to re-write the artist/year column to match the order of the titles (or vice-versa). This is a useful step – but not at the start; it only helps after you get the first hidden message.

- Time After Time indexes into “Lauper, Cyndi” twice, producing an L and a U.

- It’s possible to skip the first hidden message and simply add the shifts to the song years and read it as ASCII. This is fine.

- It’s important that the “shift” that you add to the year be positive/absolute values (note the “absolutely” hint in the poem).

- The “ask? Keys…” hint may be missed by some teams, and, if so, the relevant step may be hard to get. Consider hinting to teams stuck here that Catherine might have put a clue as to the encoding mechanism in the poem, and that they should consider reading it out loud, slowly. If they still don’t get it, I advise pointing out the ask-keys hint.

- Going by instinct, teams may get the wrong “chart-topper” songs. Common errors might be “True Blue” and “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”. However, the solutions are unique – there’s only one #1 single in the correct time period (1982 - 5/20/86) using each of the four clue words.

- Some teams may not see the poem as a roadmap – in particular, they may look for hints throughout the poem at any point in their solve process. This may lead to various wrong turns, such as seeing the “four timeless chart-toppers” reference as an instruction to pick the correct four songs from the mixtape – perhaps the ones that were #1 singles. Encourage them to use the poem “in order”.

Response to Correct Answer

DR. WHEN: "Great Scott! Why didn't she tell me back then? Things would have been so much...better. I just typed it in and it works!" [Proceed to Quantum Time Vibrations event or Art History event, depending on each team's timing.]

To Do

Puzzle ready for production.